Some of the parents involved have contacted lawyers with a view to suing the city council in one of the biggest scandals to hit the local authority.

Edinburgh City Council have now launched a full investigation into why the practice was allowed to develop at Mortonhall.

Sands Lothian, a charity who counsel parents who have lost a child through a stillbirth or neonatal death, uncovered the scandal.

One devastated parent said she has never recovered from the shock of being told she couldn’t have her son’s ashes.

Helen Henderson, 43, from Sighthill, said: “My son Nathan died when he was just one day old in August 2004.

“We were told by the undertaker that we would receive his ashes, but when we went to collect them a lady told us we had been misinformed.”

Dorothy Maitland

The charity’s operations manager, Dorothy Maitland, discovered the ashes of her daughter Kaelen have been buried at Mortonhall – 26 years after she was told there would be nothing for her to collect.

She said: “It’s come as a complete shock to me.

“For years I have had nowhere to go to put flowers or grieve for Kaelen. The new manager at the crematorium has told me the only reason he can think why this happened in the past was either laziness or a bad attitude.”

The staff involved in the practice are understood to have retired last year.

A council source said: “The million dollar question is, why did the staff do this?

“Perhaps it was misguided good intention? We are all completely gobsmacked by it.”

Edinburgh’s environmental services convener, Lesley Hinds, has offered a full apology to all parents affected.

She added: “We will be contacting the staff who have now retired to get an explanation to why this happened.

“We can’t change history but we can work with Sands to try to help those affected.”